“But we’ve got to do something,” Lindsey says.
“Yeah,” I say. “We do.”
Owlette, Taco, War
Monday, we’re still trying to figure out what to do about the abject horror that is Todd Firebaugh.
Meanwhile, life goes on and I deal with everyday horrors instead. Third period, for example, I run into Jared.
I’m delivering a form to the office for Mr. Harrel, and there he sits on the long brown couch across from the secretary, his phone in hand.
And here’s the weird part: When the dreaded moment arrives and I’m wondering where to hide, he acts like nothing ever happened.
“Hot stuff! Check out your hair!”
“You’re back!” I say, overly perky, thinking, I am so not ready for this.
“You seen Graveyard Burn—that movie with the zombies, you know, at the doll factory?”
“Umm…?” I say.
“This guy on Twitter is trying to tell me it’s better than Dance for the Slayer. The one where they invade the prom. Which is an absolute classic.” He holds up his screen, as if the idiocy of the guy on Twitter is something best communicated by the mere presence of his phone. “It’s just bullsh—” He stops himself, glancing at the secretary. “I mean, come on.”
I’ve been pulling out my hair, trying to figure out the right way to let Jared down easy, but there’s apparently nothing to let down. Besides his disappointment in @Dude66.
“How are you feeling?” I ask. “With the accident and all?”
He knocks on the top of his head with his knuckles. “Doc says soon I’ll be good as new.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
He looks at me blankly. “What for?”
“’Cause, you know, your head.”
“Ah,” he says, clearly still confused, “yeah.”
“’Cause I hit you,” I clarify.
“Oh!” He raises his eyebrows, bemused. “You hit me?”
“Not like that!” I say. “Don’t you”—I hesitate, not sure I really want to bring this up—“don’t you remember?”
“Hmmm.” He clicks his tongue stud against his teeth, thinking. “Nope.”
Now I’m the one who looks blank.
“There’s a good chunk of time I’ve totally lost,” Jared goes on. “Doc says it’s normal with a concussion.”
“Whoa,” I say.
“He made me stay at home all week. And get this, I couldn’t do anything. No Internet, no video games, no texting, no TV. He said I had to ‘rest my brain.’ I could listen to music and stuff, though. So that was all right.”
It feels like the conversation has ended, so I make that “huh” sound—the one that means I have nothing left to say. I walk the few feet to the desk and hand Mr. Harrel’s paper to the secretary. Her “Thanks, sugar!” is sweeter than a glazed doughnut.
“Hold up,” Jared calls as I head out. “You’ll see Charlie later, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Would you give him something for me?” He starts sifting around in his backpack. “It’s here somewhere.”
Jared pulls out a mat of crumpled notebook paper, stained brown from what looks like coffee. Then a wadded paper cup and the remains of a fast-food bag. He keeps digging.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “You can give it to him in gym.”
“I won’t be there.” Jared stops, looks up. “That’s why I’m here. They’re moving me to Coach Anderson’s seventh period.” He dives back in his backpack, poking around. “He’s in a health rotation, and Doc says no physical stress for a while, so I’m—ah! Got it!” He pulls out a roughened-up paperback and places it in my hands. A black cover with MARTIN TRUNDEL at the bottom in big white letters, and above: THE RULES OF ANT LIFE. “Charlie left it at my house.”
“Hmm.” I say, flipping through the first few pages. It’s broken up like poetry. Strange words stand out: owlette, taco, war. I pick a few lines at random and read them out loud:
In the beginning was a gun that dreamed of swallowing a mango pit.
In the beginning was a mango pit that couldn’t keep the hair out of its eyes.
“Deeeeeeeep,” I say.
“Yeah.” Jared laughs. “Charlie…” He drifts to silence.
“What? Charlie what?”
“It’s kind of embarrassing.”
“Sure. Okay,” I say. “But if you don’t tell me, I’m going to spend the rest of the day imagining every embarrassing thing two guys could possibly do with a book of poetry.”
“Stop!”
“I can’t help it. That’s just how it is.”
“He was reading it to me, all right!” Jared says. “You know, ’cause I couldn’t do anything. I was bored. It was no big deal.”
“Charlie visited you while you were out?” I ask.
And of course he did. Like he did for his dying neighbor. Like he would for anyone. Because that’s who he is.
And just like that, the part inside me with all the romantic goo suddenly goes warm.
“We hung out some,” Jared says.
“That’s like… like…” I realize sweet, the word I want to say, would embarrass Jared even more. “Cool.”
“You guys have been hanging out, too, right?” he asks. And if I didn’t live through last Monday, when he gazed up at me and declared I was so beautiful that my eyes glittered, I might not have heard the tint of mustard yellow in his voice. Because if yearning’s a color, it’s definitely yellow.
“Yeah,” I say. “Listen, Jared—”
“That’s awesome,” he says, and it sounds like he really means it. “You’re happy, right?”
I nod.
“Then awesome,” he says. “Fantastic.”
“Fantastic,” I echo, making my voice light. “I’ll see you around,” I say, then leave.
Distance
Sometimes I think I’m the only person at Midland High who doesn’t have a regular lunch table. I guess I’m what you’d call a floater. Which is also what you call little bits of food that backwash into someone’s soda bottle. Or poop that won’t flush. So yay me.
I choose a table that’s mostly empty due to the choir field trip to Washington, DC. Just me, my obsessive thoughts, my baked potato, and two guys in country-boy T-shirts. One, a dog on a tractor. The other has a big flag and literally reads COUNTRY BOY, AMERICAN MADE.
As I eat, I pull out the book Jared gave me to pass to Charlie and flip through it again. It’s mostly bad behavior—drinking too much, living in squalor, cursing a lot, a bunch of weird stuff. And occasionally something heart-stopping and true.
I imagine Charlie reading those poems. No, even weirder, reading them to Jared. Jared in a sickbed, a cold cloth on his forehead, the blue light of his unused laptop flickering in the corner as Charlie intones line after line in that droning voice people use for poetry.
I’m not sure when Charlie found the time last week to go get all bromantic with Jared. Maybe after my ten thirty weekday curfew? It’s not like we’re joined at the hip, but except for this weekend, we hung out a lot. I texted him a few times on Sunday, but I didn’t hear back. Charlie’s normal response-to-text ratio is pretty lacking, though, so I’m not worried.
I want to tell him in person anyway about Lindsey’s creepy bear and Taylor’s creepy candy and Todd cozying up with Kyle all creepy in jail.
I poke what remains of my potato—looking forward for once to English class because I know Charlie will be there. As I rise, I feel my bangs brush my forehead and I wonder if he’ll like my new hair.
So when Charlie blitzes in a second before English class starts and sits not in the desk beside me, but in the only other empty desk three rows away, I’m—I guess you’d say surprised. Then, when I’m looking right at him and he stares ahead, as if Clarissa Coleson’s back is the most interesting thing in the world, I’m confused. And when he just keeps staring ahead all through Mr. Campbell’s lecture on the absurdity of evil in Heart of Darkness, no matter how obviousl
y I try to catch his eye, I’m some weird combination of hurt and sad and someone-just-stole-my-rainbow pissed.
Not that he doesn’t get to stare at Clarissa’s back if he wants to. Fine. Fine, right?
Yeah, it’s fine. But I get to feel what I feel, too. The last I saw him, he didn’t want to let go of my hand. And now, what? I’m invisible? How does that work, exactly?
Plus I need him to help me figure out this stuff with Todd. How did I get in the place where I need him at the exact moment he is for no reason whatsoever on another planet?
Arrrgh!
By the end of class, my anger has become a regal thing. It wears its own crown and demands subservience.
Even so, I take my time packing up, intentionally not slamming my notebook into my backpack, but placing it in slowly, with exaggerated care. There’s a sliver of sanity that whispers, Maybe I don’t know the whole story, maybe I’m imagining things, maybe Charlie will come up to me after class and take my hand and walk me to gym like he did every day last week, maybe he’s just tired or distracted, maybe there’s something else going on.
But by the time I zip up my bag, stand, and shoulder it, Charlie is already gone.
Moons
In seventh period, it’s more of the same. He’s intense. He’s brooding. I don’t exist.
We end up on teams across the gym from each other. At some point, Joe Pinsky clobbers the volleyball. It slams down and bounces into the far court, near where Charlie is positioned. I’m closest to the back, so I run to get it. But Mark Lee, for no reason, blocks me off.
“Our ball?” I pant, hand on hip.
“Hold on,” he says, giving me a sit-stay look, and goes to knock it toward me with his foot.
For the rest of class, Mark remains a moon in an oddly shifting orbit—solidly between Charlie and me.
In the shower, I try to hold on to my anger. Because anger is also an orbiting rock, burning at its core, and I want it to keep me from any other feels that might be rattling around in space.
Afterward, I text Lindsey, and she texts back that she picked up a shift at Big Lots after school.
How’s it going?
sucks
Yeah. Sucks.
Need a ride?
no moms car finaly fixed
Sure you ok?
trying not to freak… keeping busy
It’s good advice: Keep busy. I have nowhere to put all my anger and fear and pre-chewed confusion, so I do what I always do when at a loss. I gear up for a run.
As I double-knot my shoes, I wonder if I should risk it, you know, running alone, with Todd out there and his weirdo plans.
But Todd would have to catch me first, and he’s pretty slow.
Plus, damn it, I get to have this. I get to go out and run in the world. For a half hour after school, I get to listen to nothing more than the river birds and an occasional car passing in the distance. I get to set off like a flame, burning hard, leaving behind whatever unanswerable questions can’t keep up.
Unfortunately, at the moment my unanswerable questions—about Charlie, about Todd and Kyle, about Lindsey and Robert and Life—are every bit as fast as me.
did I do something wrong?—thup, thup—make something of nothing?—thup, thup—what am I not seeing?—thup—what does he want?—thup, thup—is someone watching us? am i safe?
I run harder, deciding it’s all stupid anyway. Stupid that I thought I might get to feel something. Stupid that I wanted to be alive in this world without someone messing with me.
Anger is stupid. So is Charlie’s face. So are the trees.
I slow to a walk. Walking is stupid. Two kids on bikes zip past me on my left. Stupid and stupider.
Then I pull my cell phone from my jacket pocket and do something truly stupid. I text Charlie.
Is something wrong?
No answer.
Because it kind of seems like something’s wrong.
I wait two minutes, counting in my head as I walk to make sure it’s a full two minutes.
Let me rephrase that. Why am I pissing you off?
Two more minutes.
Three.
No, let me rephrase that. Why are you pissing me off?
Thirty seconds.
No, no. Screw you. That’s what I really mean. Go screw yourself.
Two seconds.
The End.
The Plan
The bright blue sign above Lindsey’s head reads SMOOTH MOVE: EXCEPTIONAL SMOOTHIES AND CONFECTIONS, and underneath, for no apparent reason, MAKE YOUR LIFE A WORK OF ART!
She takes a slurp of her almond-banana smoothie and confesses, “I’ve been keeping an eye on Todd.”
“Seriously?”
She nods, taps a finger against the table. “Like at lunch today. I was just watching him, trying to see if he was watching me.”
“And was he?” I ask.
“He didn’t seem to be, but maybe he’s just… subtle.”
“Todd Firebaugh is the least subtle person I know.” I think back to the tight, perfect loops in the notes he left us. It’s not your fault. “I’m surprised he can even write in cursive.”
“I think we should spy on him.”
“What?!”
“Everywhere I go, I’m like, Is he following me? I checked under my friggin’ bed last night before I could fall asleep. It’s messed up. And on top of the whole thing with Robert… God, I’m coming unhinged. I need to do something. We should follow him for a change.”
It sounds like it should be a joke, but I’m pretty sure she means it. “Okaaaay,” I say. “That’s pretty extreme.”
“Why?”
“Because… how do you even do that?”
“Easy.” She leans in. “Here’s the plan. I’ll drive my mom’s Chrysler tomorrow, so he won’t recognize us. Then we hang in the Sheetz parking lot after school. Anybody coming out has to pass that way, and when he goes by, we pull in behind.”
“Are we wearing fake mustaches, too?”
She brushes off my snark. “Hats, yes. Mustaches, no.”
“I don’t know, Lindsey. This could go—”
“I’m doing it. Whether you come with me or not.”
I sip my mango smoothie. I know that tone. She’s not giving this up.
And there’s no way I’m going to let Lindsey do something like that alone.
“Okay,” I say. “Whatever. I’m in.”
Invisible
Lindsey, it turns out, wasn’t kidding about the hats. She has a dark purple knit beanie with a pom-pom for me and a black velvet baseball cap for herself.
“It’s like I’m invisible,” I say, tugging the beanie over my hair.
“I got you Strawberry Lime.” Lindsey hands me a frozen slushie, then points to a bag of barbecue potato chips on the floorboard. “And look! Snacks!”
We both got out of seventh period early—me by telling Coach I had to go to the bathroom fifteen minutes before the end of gym, and Lindsey by skipping government altogether. We’re parked behind a delivery truck, but we still have a good view of the road. It isn’t long before the line of after-school cars snakes by.
“That’s him!” Lindsey pulls out into the flow of traffic, positioning herself a few cars behind Todd’s red Mustang.
We follow him down Main, right on Fourth, and left on Garfield. As the streets become less busy, Lindsey slows to leave more distance between us and Todd. When he pulls over in front of an old brown bungalow, Lindsey drives past, then circles the block and parks a few houses down on the opposite side of the street.
We hunker in our seats and wait.
And wait.
And wait.
I open the chips, take a few, and hand the bag to Lindsey.
“So we just sit here?” I ask, crunching. “Forever?”
“Yeah,” Lindsey says.
I’ve had time to count the wooden fences (three) versus chain link (five), mailboxes with decorative covers (two) versus black metal (ten), bare yards (eight) versus yards wi
th trees (four). I’ve had time to contemplate the likelihood of life on other planets and the perpetual lack of ketchup packets in the school cafeteria and the top ten names for puppies (from #10, Artemis, to #1, Griffindog).
“Ugh.” I pull off my hat and comb my fingers through my hair. “How do cops do this?”
“It’s boring, but at least we know he’s in there, right? If we’re watching him, he can’t be watching us.”
I eat another handful of chips, then wipe the orange dust on my jeans. “Do we have any real food?” I ask, checking my backpack. I come up with two squished granola bars and hold one out for Lindsey, but she doesn’t notice. Instead, she’s sitting up in prairie dog mode, eyes focused on the bungalow’s front stoop. I glance over and there, maybe thirty feet away, is Todd in a bulky gray jacket, heading down his front walk.
“Oh my God,” she squeals, squeezing my knee.
It’s weird how the sight of a guy strolling to his car can make my stomach suddenly feel like a Mentos dropped in carbonated soda. For a second, it’s like I’m back at Matt Graybill’s party, Todd’s hands on my body, his weight pressed against me.
“Okay, be cool,” Lindsey tells herself, though she might as well be talking to me. She yanks the brim of her hat down and purposefully slouches in her seat. “I’m going to wait for him to turn,” she says, her hand hovering near the ignition switch. Half a block away, Todd’s Mustang veers onto a side street that leads back to Main.
“Are you sure we should be doing this?” I ask.
“No,” she says, then flicks on the engine and follows him down the street.
We trail Todd down Main, past the edge of town. He turns right into a weird little strip mall. Lindsey turns left instead and parks in the lot of Twin Acres Motel across the street.
Todd pulls up to the pump outside the Fast Gas convenience store at the far end of the strip. The other places look super sketchy, like they’re fronts for something else. Except for Luann’s Nails and Midland Tactical Supply, they don’t even have business names on their signs, just what they do in big letters and a phone number below. MASSAGE and TATTOO and PIZZA.
How She Died, How I Lived Page 16